The Motto Book: Being a Collection of Epigrams

Front Cover
The Roycrofters, 1920 - 67 pages

From inside the book

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 14 - The stout mate thought of home; a spray Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. "What shall I say, brave Adm'r'l, say, If we sight naught but seas at dawn?" "Why, you shall say at break of day: 'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!
Page 15 - Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!" Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck, And peered through darkness. Ah, that night Of all dark nights! And then a speck — A light! a light! a light! a light! It grew, a starlit flag unfurled! It grew to be Time's burst of dawn. He gained a world; he gave that world Its grandest lesson: "On! sail on!
Page 15 - Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later delicate death.
Page 56 - TO go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with' me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars.
Page 35 - Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground.
Page 15 - They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate: " This mad sea shows his teeth to-night. He curls his lip, he lies in wait. With lifted teeth, as if to bite! Brave admiral, say but one good word: What shall we do when hope is gone? " The words leapt like a leaping sword: "Sail on! Sail on! Sail on, and on!
Page 25 - He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
Page 40 - MY STAR. ALL that I know Of a certain star Is, it can throw (Like the angled spar) Now a dart of red, Now a dart of blue; Till my friends have said They would fain see, too, My star that dartles the red and the blue! Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled: They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it. What matter to me if their star is a world? Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.
Page 49 - THE day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating concerns and duties. Help us to play the man, help us to perform them with laughter and kind faces, let cheerfulness abound with industry. Give us to go blithely on our business all this day, bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undishonoured, and grant us in the end the gift of sleep.
Page 29 - If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he builds his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.

Bibliographic information